1. Unfiltered content — straight from the writer to the reader … no pesky editor, proofreader, or fact checker.

2. Instant communication — have a thought, make it available online to millions in seconds.

But do we really need information in the blink of an eye … especially at the expense of accuracy?

With blogging, that happens all the time.

Example: when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was slow to rise after a recent hearing, a blogger instantly noted Ginsburg’s seeming frailty on her blog — giving rise to rumors that the judge was will and would soon retire.

Had the blogger, an ABC legal reporter, bothered to ask Ginsburg about the incident before reporting it, should would have discovered the truth: the judge’s shoe had slipped off under the table, and she couldn’t find it!

An article in The Week (4/27/07, p. 14) observes that speed of the Internet is forcing people “to make important decisions without any time to think and reflect.”

Result: a flood of false assumptions and rash words “now flashes around the world in a nanosecond.”

How about you, dear reader?

Do you want your news, facts, and analysis fast — or do you want it good?

As I mentioned in an earlier post on this blog, I recently signed a contract with a major publisher to write a book titled ?My Year in the Blogosphere: Confessions of a Blogging Skeptic? — and I?m hoping you can help me with it.

My question has to do with why you visit, read, and leave posts on blogs (like this one).

There are so many other sources of information available on the topics you are interested in: Web sites, articles, books.

Most of these sources are (in my opinion) better written, better researched, more authoritative, and more thought out than blogs. Do you agree?

So why not just read books, periodicals, and Web sites? Why do you read blogs ? and bother writing posts on them?